Recapping the World History Seminar “She-Buffaloes: Production and Reproduction in the Age of Revolutions, 1776-1803” on 13 October 2025

Prof. XU Guanmian from Peking University, an alumnus of the CUHK History Department, was invited to deliver an online talk entitled “She-Buffaloes: Production and Reproduction in the Age of Revolutions, 1776-1803”, based on his forthcoming book. He started the talk with a thought-provoking question: Why do we focus on humans while neglecting animals like the buffalo? Despite their crucial role in Asian sugar production and other industries, buffaloes have been largely overlooked—partly due to their absence in Europe and North China, as they are primarily confined to the Global South. Traditionally seen as symbols of Asian peasantry and pre-modern subsistence, buffaloes are frequently stereotyped as anti-capitalist.

Prof. XU challenged this view by asking: Can buffaloes be capitalistic? Could these tropical animals—long cast as symbols of subsistence economies—have driven the capitalist expansions of commodity frontiers in Asia, in ways comparable to the plantation systems of the Atlantic? In 18th-century Batavia, buffaloes served as a specialized working class on sugar plantations. When Java became entangled in the American and Haitian Revolutions and emerged as a world-leading coffee producer, buffaloes transported coffee from the mountains to the port. Their soft hooves made them well-suited to muddy, roadless terrain, rendering them both ideal capital and labor.

Yet overexploitation impeded reproduction. As a result, people began purchasing buffaloes from elsewhere, leading to the emergence of a buffalo frontier that specialized in buffalo reproduction. This created a “metabolic rift” as buffaloes were moved to plantations but did not return. In 1776, a VOC official proposed prohibiting the slaughter of female buffaloes to promote reproduction. However, by the end of the century, as more buffaloes died and prices rose, Western Java began transitioning toward the industrialization of sugar production.

In conclusion, Prof. XU urged a rethinking of buffaloes beyond the dichotomy of Asian peasantry and Atlantic plantations. He called for deeper engagement between Asian rural studies and the new histories of capitalism, and raised the possibility of an animalized historical anthropology—one that integrates non-human actors into broader socio-economic narratives.

 

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Recapping the Academic Seminar “Convict Politics: Mutual Responsibility System and Criminalizing the Innocent (221 BCE–23 CE)” on 15 October 2025

On 15 October 2025, Prof. CAI Liang from the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame delivered an insightful book talk entitled “Convict Politics: Mutual Responsibility System and Criminalizing the Innocent (221 BCE–23 CE)” for our Department.

Drawing on data from newly unearthed manuscripts and traditional sources, Prof. CAI examined convict politics in the early Chinese empires in her talk. Contrary to previous scholarship that views convicts merely as labor for state projects, she demonstrated that they played vital roles in both local and central government. Approximately 20 percent of high-ranking officials in the Former Han dynasty were once convicted, while convicts in local governments occupied crucial positions in administration and law enforcement.

According to Prof. CAI, the emergence of convict politics was a direct result of the “mutual-responsibility system” – a major legal principle in the Qin and Han dynasties that sought to deter crime through collective punishment and severe penalties. While effective for surveillance and securing labor, the system inadvertently compromised justice and conflated moral standards by producing a significant number of innocent convicts and distorting the relationship between crime and punishment. Legal reforms were initiated during the Han period; however, the increasing bureaucratization of legal processes prevented any meaningful change.

Prof. CAI’s forthcoming book based on this research, Convict Politics: From Utopia to Serfdom in Early China (221 BCE–23 CE), will be published by Cambridge University Press in November 2025.

 

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Further Study Sharing Session 2025-26

Organizer: M.A. Programme for Comparative and Public History, Department of History, CUHK
Enquiry: 3943 8659

 

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Yu Ying-shih Lecture in History 2025/26

To enhance academic and cultural exchange, Chung Chi College, New Asia College and the Department of History of the University joined hands in 2007 to establish the “Yu Ying-shih Lecture in History”. This year, Professor WANG Ming-ke, Guest Chair Professor of History at Peking University, and Academician of Academia Sinica, has been invited as the guest speaker of the following two public lectures:

All lectures will be conducted in Putonghua. Participation in person or online via ZOOM is welcome.
For registration, please complete the online registration form.
For enquiries, please call at 3943 7609.

 

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For teachers and students who have information to share with the Department, please email your articles in both Chinese and English to chanfiona@cuhk.edu.hk by 4:00pm every Monday.